I’d have to agree with any accusations that a lot of my recipes are on the spicy side, and I also have a tendency towards tomato-based sauces, so I thought that a Carbonara would fit well, and might also make a nice change to the blog.

Lo and behold, Slimming World’s Little Book of Sauces contained a Carbonara sauce, so this week’s recipe is my (very similar) take on that.

It’s been a while since we’ve tried a Mystery Bag Challenge, so I decided to put my healthy eating aside for a day and give it another go!

Today’s challenge comes to you from Nell – her suggestion of Scallops, Shallots, Pasta & Creme Fraiche was drawn at random, and I added an additional couple of ingredients. See Tidy Tweaks, though, for suggestions without the additions!

I’m quite proud of this, as lately I’ve been sharing my attempts at other people’s recipes (largely due to the fat club thing). This one, though, I conceptualised myself from the list of ingredients, and I think it makes for a good overall plate. Obviously pairings like scallops and chorizo are already recognised, but I brought the ensemble together myself, and used techniques that I thought might work. It’s also my first time cooking Scallops and Orzo (I’d never even tasted the latter before!)

So here we have it! Get stuck in, and don’t forget to let me know how you find it, or what you’d try with the ingredients!

This is without a doubt the ultimate Ifits recipe! For those who aren’t aware of the term, an Ifits recipe is one made from left-overs – Ifit’s in the fridge/cupboard, we’re having it! And so I present to you a genius recipe for left-over Christmas food!

I do have a confession to make – I had the idea for this recipe long before I had the opportunity to have left-over Christmas dinner, and just had to try it! I bought all the ingredients in (in small quantities) and went for it. The result was so good, that I had a missive from mother insisting that we actually make this for Christmas Dinner proper, instead of the traditional roast! As it turns out, we were subsequently invited to a family affair elsewhere… but I wasn’t off the hook… we had this on Christmas Eve!

The original idea came to me while I was flicking through Lisa Faulkner’s The Way I Cook. She has a Chicken Pie recipe that includes a layer of stuffing in the pastry crust, so that got my mind going. I only really have stuffing with Christmas Dinner (well, unless I visit a Carvery and it’s just there) so my mind instantly turned towards festive food!

The base for the sauce, as well as the idea of the stuffing-in-the-pastry, is adapted from her recipe… the rest is all me.

And remember, it’s an Ifits, so use this only as a template, and chuck in whatever you’ve got!

I love a turkey Christmas Dinner, but for my blog I wanted to do something a bit different, so I’ve gone back to something even more traditional and added some modern/non-traditional twists.

Today’s recipe is Roast Partridge, served on a bed of Rosemary, Sage, and Parmesan Polenta, with a Pear wrapped in Pancetta on the side. Not included in the recipe (but in the photographs) is a bit of a lower-brow side that might seem out of place. Can’t think what on earth inspired me to include those 😉

It’s the simple things that make Christmas, right? Well, you won’t get much simpler (or tastier) than these Christmas Parcels. They’re pretty easy to make, but harder to make pretty… I’ve worked hard to make these parcels look as if they were wrapped by a three year-old (ahem).

I wanted a starter for Christmas dinner that would be different from the norm (prawn cocktail, anyone?), light enough to leave room for the courses to follow, yet still satisfying… and above all, tasty!

It seems we’ve gone a bit Savoury-centric again on TidyMunch lately, so I thought I’d shake it up a bit with another tasty dessert!

This one came together from a combination of different recipes, as I particularly wanted to combine the flavours of lemon and elderflower for a certain somebody who’s a big fan of both, but I couldn’t find a single one that incorporated the two together.

And so the World Cup is over, but I couldn’t let it pass without a Brazilian recipe! At least they’ve made it to one final =/

Over the course of the competition I’ve been perfecting a light Chicken Stew (moqueca de frango) and although it’s tasty and I can thoroughly recommend it… nothing I could do made it even remotely visually appealing.

So instead, we have these wonderful little parcels of joy! They’re perfect finger food, and will go down well as nibbles when you want to impress and offer something other than chicken nuggets and sausage rolls! They’re also suitable for vegetarians, but not in an overt way that might deter hard-core carnivores!

The recipe comes from Cabana The Cook Book – a wonderful book that I hope to review for you very soon!

But enough about that for now… let’s just Kick off, for one last time!